


our hearts know deeper seasons than our memories

by jolie_unfiltrd



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BUT I STILL LOVE IT, F/M, Gendry is a Baratheon, Jon/Dany (mentioned), Minor Arya Stark/Gendry Waters, Sisters, This turned out to be more in praise of the strength of a sibling relationship, but still a bastard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 05:46:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18046655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jolie_unfiltrd/pseuds/jolie_unfiltrd
Summary: It goes like this: you say your vows beneath the weirwood tree in the godswood, trembling hands smothered in the roughness of his - he reaches for you the second you were close enough, blue eyes oddly soft in the recognition of the steel of your spine- and though your voice rings out strong and true, the pounding of the blood in your veins threatens to overtake you completely.It goes like this, too: Arya runs and returns and leaves and comes back and sails off to Essos or Bravos or god knows where and sails back on the prow of a boat with a crooked circlet on her head.It goes like this: first, there was nothing, and it meant nothing; then, maybe, it meant something.





	our hearts know deeper seasons than our memories

It goes like this: you say your vows beneath the weirwood tree in the godswood, trembling hands smothered in the roughness of his - he reaches for you the second you were close enough, blue eyes oddly soft in the recognition of the steel of your spine- and though your voice rings out strong and true, the pounding of the blood in your veins threatens to overtake you completely.

It goes like this, too: Arya runs and returns and leaves and comes back and sails off to Essos or Bravos or god knows where and sails back on the prow of a boat with a crooked circlet on her head. 

It goes like this: first, there was nothing, and it meant nothing; then, maybe, it meant something. 

 

 **i.**  
The night is like coal upon your eyes and even the stars have disappeared. Wolves howl in the distance as Arya whimpers, sweat running down her brow despite the chill of the night, the layers of quilts you have carefully nestled around her, the desperate prayers from your lips. You don’t know any gods, now, but you offer words and promises because you have nothing left to give, nothing left to lose. 

Bran is not your brother, not as long as the raven speaks through his dulled eyes. Jon has gone. Catelyn, Ned, Rickon, Robb… Names settle around your neck like a shroud that you have, thus far, refused to don. A small, too-thin hand is clutched within your own - and even though sometimes it feels like trying to grasp smoke, or clutch the wind - you beg for your horse-faced little sister who has turned into the deadly assassin to survive the night. And when the words have left you, when the maesters have retreated, when the wolves howl their displeasure, you remain. 

You are the one to hear her murmurs, her cries, as she thrashes against imagined enemies and weeps for the return of the ones she’s loved. You are the one to hear his name, dropped from her lips like a priceless jewel. It means nothing to you. It means something to her. 

When she wakes, you say nothing - only kiss her brow and clutch her hand, a bright smile adorning your worn and weary face. You do not think of who you would be, without her, the last, loneliest Stark in the world. 

(You don’t even look like a Stark, though you walk the halls you’ve always walked, a gown of charcoal brushing softly against the stones. Your Tully hair and Tully eyes and Tully look betrays you at every turn, burns you each time - _Mother_ , you think, hopefully, despairingly, before the dagger digs a little deeper into you and the scars ache anew.) 

You welcome your sister back and ask nothing of the name you heard. There is much you don’t know about this girl-turned-woman that strode back through the gates, hair dark and long around her shoulders even as the eyes were sharper - and much she doesn’t know about you. Let her secrets be as hidden as your scars, if she wishes. You love her like you love the birds that travel to the woods each spring, even the more lovely for their fleeting song. 

(You try to love her like you love the white-winged birds; you fail. Your hands grasp the other tightly in your skirts to keep from holding her to you, to this place, forever. Each morning - when she appears to break her fast with you - relief hits you like a glancing blow. You offer her porridge. She pushes the fruit preserves your way. 

It is a comforting rhythm for all that you know it will not last.)

You forget about the name entirely once she has healed. 

 

 **ii.**  
You have been carrying the letter in your pocket for weeks. Arya’s presence, both soothing and grating, wears on you like a whetstone as you think, think, think for a way to refuse, pacing circles in the snow beneath the weirwood trees.

You have lived under a Queen before. You know that there can be no refusal from your lips. The bronze-wrought, ill-fitting circlet upon your brow gives you power, it’s true. You could declare war. You could fight to never marry, to rule and be devoted entirely to the North. But when the people have just been given peace, when the crops have been planted anew, when the babies are born and the soldiers go home and the children begin to have hope in their eyes, you cannot - you will not - ask them to go to war for your happiness. 

(You don’t deserve it, anyway, but you had at least hoped for freedom. For years of just standing outside and feeling the sun on your face and marveling that the dead walked the earth, dragons flew in front of the weak winter sun and yet, there you stand. Winter has come and gone and you, you brave girl, you broken woman, you remain.) 

The anger towards the queen - a woman who knows intimately what it is to be traded and sold like chattel - keeps you warm in even the coldest of days, a smoldering coal hidden in your chest; at night, you take it out and turn it over in your hands, savoring the way it burns. The taste of the betrayal is bitter on your tongue - for the queen may hold no love in her heart for you, but Jon, surely, you had thought he still cared for you. He had promised to protect you. 

And yet, the man you called brother, cousin, friend, would dare promise you away, would barter you as you have been bartered before - as reckless with your heart as he is careful with the kingdom. To fix old wounds, to soothe new aches, to serve as powerful cyvasse player in title alone even as they only want your pretty, pretty Tully face. There is effort in remaining calm when you want to rage against him with your every breath; you yell in the crypts at the likeness of the man that looks most like him but it gives you no relief. Jon, who most knows the cost of duty and has finally chosen love, has stolen this choice from you. 

(It is not until later that you remember the lemons.) 

It should be no surprise to you when Arya steals the letter, one day, her nimble hand reaching into your pocket and as you turn to snatch it from her hands - you let your hands fall. Let there be one less secret between you. 

The offer is simple: marry this Baratheon boy - newly legitimized, newly found - keep the North, have heirs and spares and do not forget that the queen in the South is barren. Do not forget that the North will be independent, for this promise. Do not forget that you owe her a child, for this promise. Do not forget that your children will rule over kingdoms. Do not forget that you will marry a man you have never met on the whim of another monarch. Do not forget that your marriage to Tyrion has been annulled to gift you this marriage to some Baratheon boy and it would be easy to have re-done. Do not forget Jon left the North to keep it safe and it would be easy to make you leave, too. 

Do not forget that this offer is a gift to keep you in line, to keep you - Tully blood, Stark blood, Lannister marriage, Riverrun born, married to a Baratheon bastard - from usurping that which you never wanted in the first place. 

(The letter does not state it as such, but you have always been very good at reading between the lines.)

The other side of the coin: stay unmarried, the North will lose everything it has won. Winterfell will be lost, given to some other noble and you will be married off and sent far away. Either way, you are no better than chattel with a crown, only good for what you represent, only valuable for what your blood can offer. 

It is an impossible deal; there is no other answer. You have loved the North, fought and bled and nearly died for it. The silver-haired queen knows this. You know this. It is your strength and your weakness and the rhythm of your heart echoes in your ears as Arya’s eyes tear across the parchment, weathered and creased over and over again by your nimble fingers. 

_A betrothal? To keep the North in line?_ She pushes the letter back into your hands, pushing through disjointed words as she processes what you’ve had weeks to wrap your head around. Furrowed brows and a tense spine: she is a coiled snake, she is fury, she is a direwolf snarling at your neck in the night - and it that moment, you’ve never loved her more, for her righteous fury on your behalf. They - they have no right to bargain you away! Jon has no - 

You sit down on the fallen tree and simply listen to the words pouring out of her, hands waving wildly in the area as she paces back and forth. She doesn’t seem to realize Nymeria has appeared in the woods behind her, eyes wild and fur raised in anticipation of a battle. You don’t realize tears are running down your face until they splash onto your pale hands, clutched tightly in your lap as if afraid that you will fly apart if you don’t hold yourself together. 

You cannot remember anyone ever caring you for like this, ever protecting your freedom and your home so fiercely, ever protesting your role as both a pawn and a Queen. 

Her fox eyes catch yours and she tenses, scanning your form for injury, for damage, for weakness - a habit you are not sure she will ever break - before she sighs and comes to sit next to you. 

_Do you know who Jon is talking about? This Baratheon boy?_ Her head tilts, curious, a pondering gleam in her eyes that is all too familiar to you - her past, all those years of horror and bloodshed and strange names and strange eyes, has its pincer grip on her mind once more - but she shakes it off as you shake your head. If Jon trusts him… 

The question sits between you in the silence, unspoken and unthought and a betrayal to your half-brother, to your cousin, to the man you called friend and partner and family: do we still trust Jon? Even if, especially if he could make this deal? 

_I hate this._

You shrug, a deceptively cavalier lift of your shoulders, even as your hands tremble, even as tears well in your eyes once more. _Me too._

Her grey eyes flick back to you one last time and she says, so softly you strain to hear her: _the Sansa I remember wanted romance and knights and a life like a song. Maybe this is when the gods give that to you, at last._

And she stands up, bows a little in your direction - a teasing smile playing on her lips even if the hopeful melancholy persists in her Stark eyes - and leaves you in the godswood with your thoughts. 

You are frozen under the realization. She understands you, this sister so different from you in a thousand ways, as different as the night and day. She loves you, yes, but in this way she has said: you are seen, you are heard, and you deserve good. 

In the morning, your silver-eyed, dark-haired wildling sister has gone. You wish you were surprised; you had felt the restlessness in her stirring as the mother bear that stretches after her hibernation, aching to throw herself back out into the wild world, claws and all. You envy her the adventure just as you treasure the safety of the only true home you’ve ever known. 

She has left a note, simple and sure. 

I’ll come back, she writes. I love you, she doesn’t. (You know it anyway). 

(You wonder later if she had suspected, all along.) 

 

 **iii.**  
You wake earlier than the dawn one morning, shortly after Arya leaves, your brow furrowed as you puzzle at the letter that you have read over and over again in the last weeks. The queen’s handwriting is precise, careful, and yet the parchment was almost twice as long as her note. It is uncharacteristic of Daenerys to waste as such. And, more tellingly, the letter smells of lemons. Throwing your robe around your shoulders and sliding bare feet into slippers, letter in hand, you rush to your solar. 

Stupid girl, clever girl. You had nearly forgotten. 

You crouch in front of the fire, carefully holding the letter in front of the flames, watching as letters form words in the familiar handwriting you have come to look at fondly, even as you squint to read it. 

_Forgive me_ \- Jon writes, for it could only be Jon with this terrible handwriting, this secret code- _it was the only way I could think to keep you both safe._  
It need not be a true marriage - he knows that.  
You have a choice. I’m sorry I could not give you more. 

The letter concludes and though you hold it to the fire until the parchment begins to singe, nothing more appears. Your fury fades in your chest. This is the same Jon you have come to know, honest and battle-hardened and betrayal-bound to keep his secrets close at hand. This, at least, you understand. The huff that leaves your lips is half relief and half remorse that he must still keep so many secrets. But Jon, since the day you rode into Castle Black on a dying horse, has been consistent in exactly one way: he loves you, he loves the North, he loves Winterfell. He promised you would never have to leave it again, if you chose. 

This is his way of keeping his promise. You burn the letter that for all its misgivings and half-shadowed threats has turned out to be your salvation. 

You need never leave the North. 

You must marry, but it need not be a true one - and Jon would not have sent a man that would resent that, that would care, that would force himself upon you. Jon has earned your trust and shown you, over and over again, that he would not betray you. 

You - and a sob leaves your chest as you realize this, as you come to know it deep in your belly, like a spring bubbling up along the smooth river rocks - you have a choice. You’re not sure when you last had the freedom to make your own path - but it tastes like lemon cakes and sweet wine and the hazy days of spring. 

 

 **i.**  
The first time you see her, braid over her shoulder gleaming in amber, copper, gold, your hands tremble, your heart thuds dully in your chest, and you ache to be in front of a fire, clanging metal together, melting it down and molding it anew.

The first time you see her, wry smile curving the corner of her face before laughter tumbles from her mouth, your heart skips a beat and you feel ridiculous and hot-cheeked and hot-fleshed in a way you haven’t since you were a boy stumbling over your too-long limbs and you turn away but can’t resist turning back, just once, over your shoulder, to see her profile in the evening sun. 

The first time you see her, ice blue eyes glancing your way and skimming over your armor before looking to Jon, it is the final battle and you are sure you may die at any moment - if not now, tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, the next day, and you want to stride up to this woman with hair of fire and ask her how she bewitched you, tell her you are captivated by her in a way that makes you suspicious, that you want to know her name and know every curve of her pale skin underneath her gown, that from the first moment you saw her, the only thing you could think was: yes.

The first time you see Arya, it has been years and years and you hardly recognize this woman with sharp edges and sharp eyes and they meet yours in a clang of recognition but they are empty, so focused on the battle before them, and they nod and move on and her hands clutch the pommel of the sword at her waist as she angles herself in front of the other woman and you wonder who this fire-haired woman is, that Arya is so clearly protecting. 

(You see the dragonfire, and your first thought is not of death, not of Arya, but of her). 

The first time you see Jon after the battle, weary and worn and scarred and exhausted after a day of battle that turned into weeks, you demand to know who she is. Jon - somber, brooding Jon - laughs and laughs and you would hit him if you weren’t both so fragile and broken. You saw him embrace her after the battle, hold her tightly despite the blood on his face and the dark circles under her eyes, and whenever you imagine that Jon belongs to her, it feels as though your heart has been carved out of your chest. 

You have never wanted to belong to anyone before, and you want, so desperately, to belong to this woman.

You have never _wanted_ , not like this. 

_Sansa_ , Jon tells you, a grin stretched across his lips, the wound across his eye threatening to open with his mirth, before he remembers who you are, and who you have known and loved and sought after.

 _My cousin_ , he says, eyes lowering and smile fading as he looks at you, _Arya’s sister._

You pause. You nod. You do not speak of her again, not for months. Arya had spoken of a sister. Jon had spoken of a cousin. You had never imagined, in your wildest dreams, that she would look like a warrior, that she would steel would belie her every movement, soft as wind on the water and fierce as a tempest. 

You do not speak of her again. 

Not until the dragon queen threatens you, quietly, subtly, at every turn - purely for who fathered you, as if you had any choice, any control over the matter. You watch Jon watch her and handle her as if she will break, as if she still possesses the two most powerful beasts in Westeros. (She does). You watch him love her as if he cannot help himself - either from loving her or from protecting the realm. For Jon, the two may now and forever be intertwined.

(You have no interest in the realm, or in the ugly throne that any blacksmith worth his salt would scoff at. A pile of swords, curved into a poorly fitting chair that fits no one and anyone with equal severity. It is not for you. 

All you want, all you have ever wanted, is a quiet life. Working at your forge, working to make a life for yourself, slamming the hammer against steel and hearing it sing for the rest of your days. Going home to a warm fire and a warm woman who loves you, maybe some little ones. 

You hadn’t known how much you wanted that until you had every other option in the world to you. The Stormlands. A castle, all your own. A title and lands and people to rule and - ) 

When Jon offers you an escape to your castle, to your birthright, you refuse him. 

When Jon tells you to run, you refuse him. (You may be dumb sometimes but you’ve never been a coward.) 

When Jon mentions trying to protect Sansa, to keep her safe from the various marriage offers that would inevitably trap her into a spider web of deceit and politics once more, you hesitate. 

You think of Arya, you shake your head. Wistful memories of a girl pretending to be a boy, of a wolf princess pretending to be a no one, the only true friend of an apprentice with a bull helmet on the run, kept you warm in the years before the war against the dead. You hope she found what she was looking for; in another life, in another time, it might have been you. You have mourned the loss of what might have been, and when you saw her before the battle, sword on her hip and daggers in her eyes, you felt as if you were looking at a stranger, at someone you had seen on the streets, long ago. 

You think of Sansa. Of her hair, her laugh, her bright eyes, her spine, her heart. (Jon has told you everything he knows about her, and still you thirst for more). 

You tell him it must be a true choice, for her, that you will not marry her until she wishes. If she wishes. 

Jon looks at you warmly, approval in his eyes as he grasps your arm tightly, and sends you North. 

 

 **iv**.  
The dawn wakes you and you want to protest, to wind back the hours until the stars were in the sky. They will arrive today. Destriers will ride through the gates and your betrothed will be astride one of them, this Baratheon boy that Jon has sent along from one prison to another. (Arguably, you are in the same prison, but willingly so, gladly so; you call these forbidding walls and ominous weather and ghost-filled crypts your home. It does not frighten you, it welcomes you, you Stark daughter with Tully eyes, into the warmth of its hearth.) 

Robert Baratheon rode through these gates not a decade before, when you wore your beauty like a cloak to shield how you so desperately wanted to be liked, wanted, to be plucked like a flower and to leave this desolate place. He was all debauchery and violence and the sense of a man gone bad, somehow, like a lamb flank that had been left too long in the sun and been despoiled by flies and dogs and years of longing for a woman he had never had to begin with. But you had seen, even then, glimpses of what he must have been like as a young man - broad shoulders, gleaming eyes, hair as dark as pitch, sitting upon a horse as if he was born to it. 

This man - for there is no mistake, this is no boy riding into Winterfell on a destrier larger than any you’ve seen - and there could never be a mistake who has fathered this boy - _the seed is strong_ , you remember Father’s whispers behind closed doors - he has black hair that gleams in the weak afternoon sun, shoulders that come with hard, back-breaking work, and eyes bright as sapphires as they look around the courtyard. You are reminded of Brienne; it is not unwelcome. 

_He is handsome_ , you think, and it is not an admiration, but merely a fact. You surreptitiously trace the lines of his face, the broad stroke of his shoulders and his nose, the cut of his jawline and the hollow of this throat. Having seen beauty before, having been fooled by beauty before, you look for the rottenness to his smile, the insincerity in his eyes, the lines around his eyes that indicate cruelty rather than kindness - and you find none. 

(He is familiar to you, and you aren’t sure why or how, but you look at him and you think: bloodshed, eyes of ice, direwolves howling in the night. It is not necessarily comforting but it reminds you of how bravery tastes in the back of your mouth.) 

As your shoulders set and your chin lifts and your eyes become the icy blue you have become infamous for, his blue eyes lock brilliantly onto yours, and he smiles - a crooked smile that lifts his mouth and sets your heart to beat again - before dismounting his horse and walking towards you. His eyes sweep your form briefly, but linger on the plait you had chosen today in place of the circlet, on the curve of your lips as you catch him staring. Despite the rush of people and horses around you, in this courtyard, in this moment, it is just you and him.

The air is suddenly crisp in a dangerous way that feels like dangling over a precipice. 

He bows, lower than protocol would demand. You trade titles, then names. 

(Viciously, maliciously, triumph fills you when he shrugs off his title, uncomfortable with the weight. This will not be a man who will want to rule over you, to use your name and your marriage for power and influence and a crown that should never have been his. You will still be Queen; you will never be relegated to Queen Consort and just the knowledge of it, deep in your bones, makes your blood howl with victory.) 

(You are ill-prepared for the shiver that goes down your spine at the sound of his voice saying your name.

It means nothing.) 

A moment’s pause, and then, he steps one half-step closer to you, speaking lowly so that only you may hear. _I am grateful, my lady_ \- he says, and there is something in his eyes - raw and hunted and vulnerable - before he blinks and you feel as if you imagined it. 

You begin to say it is no trouble at all (it is), for you to give your life to a stranger (even if he is handsome), and protect him (who are you to protect this hulking man?) - before he clears his throat and starts again, a ruddy stain spreading across his cheeks as he gazes down at you. 

_If I had to run, I am grateful it is to Winterfell, and to you._

A shy smile spreads across your face, so slowly you hardly realize until it is wide upon your cheeks. 

He grins and it is blindingly bright and yet you can’t - won’t - look away. 

You turn and slowly walk into the castle together, your skirts swishing softly against the stones as you walk just closer than may be appropriate and he leans into you and listens as you describe the castle - eyes intent on you, tracing the intricate lines of your braid, of your jaw, of your lips - and it means nothing. 

(It feels like a beginning.) 

 

 **v.**  
He leaves you gifts. It means nothing. 

(He is obliged only to marry you and keep his head down and yet he leaves you gifts and it is so strange that you can hardly think on it. Your fingers dance across the wrapping, each time, savoring the anticipation, the wonder, the lightness in your shoulders before you remember that gifts such as these have consequences, they always do.)

They are eclectic, lovely, insignificant things - fabric for a new gown, seeds for a new type of flower that grows best in the North, a bushel full of lemons - lemons! It makes you dizzy to think of all the lemon cakes that could be made and devoured - until they aren’t. 

Until, sitting on the desk in your solar, is a crown. Hewn of bronze and as beautiful and lovely as Robb’s old crown was rough and weathered; direwolves dance and leap around the circlet and the points that edge up in a pattern remind you of the godswood, of winter, of steadfast faith. 

It is an odd thing, to be so overtaken by a bit of metalwork, but you don’t write a single letter for the rest of the afternoon, simply staring at this offering, your hand over your mouth. 

It is so unlike the world to be kind to you that you are inclined to distrust it. 

This is how it goes: a man gives you lovely things, and you wonder what he wants in return, what he will receive. A marriage, a kingdom, heirs and spares. A song, a bedchamber, a hearth to share. 

You wonder if it would be so bad, to marry this man. 

(You’ve thought that before. )

 

 **vi.**  
You begin to become accustomed to his presence - at your table during meals, at the back of the smaller hall where you hold court, at the council table (though he doesn’t say a thing, just eyes you unnervingly as you navigate the lords’ preferences and worries as an expert sailor would navigate stormy seas). 

In the mornings, he is anything but lordly, hair askew and settling in on your right to shovel porridge into his mouth at a pace most unbecoming - and yet, you can’t find it in you to chide him. Your mother would have had fits to have a man such as this - bulking and broad and lacking any restraint - at your table (let alone that he’s another bastard). Your father would not have noticed. Your brothers would have loved him - you laugh at another story he tells you, snorting indelicately through your nose. It is easy to understand why Jon loved him enough to save him, even as it is hard to picture them together - one brooding and serious, the other roguish and boyish and charming, a study in opposites. Arya, gods, Arya would have loved this man, you think - and then you are laughing again. 

It is easy to find him, in the afternoons. You simply follow the heat, the warmth, the bright sound of his laughter. You look around the edges of the training yard, where little boys make shadows of him, emulating his every move until he turns to look at them and they scatter like church mice. Eventually, he will convince them to stick around and hit him with things, but for now he can’t help the soft huff of laughter that escapes him each time. 

If he is not in the training yard, he is in the stables, sneaking apples to his favorite horses, rubbing their ears fondly before taking one or the other out to gallop wildly in the hills before returning to council meetings, where everyone pretends they do not see the wildness in his hair, the leaves along his shoulders. 

But most afternoons when you seek him out, you hear the clanging of metal on metal, the hiss of steel into cold water, the sparks from the fire as it builds to impossible heights and impossible heat, and he is where he is most at home. Sweat drips off of his brow as his arms flex and his back twists and - 

The first time he caught you spying (for there really is no better word to explain why you were sneaking around the doorway and watching him work), he didn’t say a thing until that night at dinner, when he asked what part of his work you most admired, a devilish grin spreading across his face as he watched the tips of your ears match the flush of your cheeks. 

The next time he catches you, he invites you in, and you sit on the bench beside him, shawl discarded from your shoulders, simply sharing his company and the warmth of his body, listening as he works. It becomes a habit. It becomes impossible to resist the pull of the flames, the pull of the glimpses of his muscles you have glimpsed through his shirt, the sweat across his brow. 

You wish you could tell him the truth - that you have imagined the way his rough hands would feel on your body, the feel of his lips on your skin - and that there all of your imaginings fail you, for you have never wanted like this before. You wish you could ask him to kiss you but you, you have never been brave. Not like that. 

He bids you goodnight each evening after supper, raising his glass to you and standing as you leave. You ache to invite him to your solar, but resist. You ache to invite him to kiss you, but resist. You ache to find out if your fantasies have any basis in reality, but resist. 

Until one night, you wonder why you are resisting, at all. 

It goes like this: you bid him goodnight. Your skirts glide against the stones as you walk to your chamber, each step slower and slower before you have stopped completely, halfway between the hall and your chambers, consumed by thoughts of him and your heart is pounding in your chest and your hands tremble at your sides. 

It goes like this: you turn around. 

It goes like this: you see him standing there, in the hallway, cheekbones lit by candlelight and eyes so dark they are more night sky than sapphire and you want - oh, you want - 

_I just, I thought you might_ \- he is unsure, and it is endearing. He does not take a single step towards you, and it is empowering. He looks at you and it feels like worship. Candlelight casts a soft glow upon his face and he looks at you, rapturous, and your blood thrums in your veins. He spreads his hands at his sides and doesn’t move until the tips of your toes line up with his, until you place your hands on the side of his face, rise up on your toes and press your lips firmly to his, guided purely by instinct and forcefully forgetting any moment but this, any man but the one you hold so firmly in your power.

But - after a moment - his hands wrap around your waist and pull you close, his mouth opens and tilts and he deepens the kiss and it is even better than anything you could have hoped for, anything you might have imagined in your feverish dreams of him, filled with heat and wandering hands. 

You pull away. You smile at him, at the way he is suddenly completely at a loss for words. 

_Good night, Gendry_ , you say, pulling from his grasp and turning to head to your chambers. His eyes follow you the entire way, but he does not follow, does not chase, does not do anything you did not initiate - and for that, you could be half in love with him already. You close the door and sink against it, pressing your fingertips to your lips and beaming. 

It means nothing, but maybe, someday, it could mean something. 

(Maybe it already does.)

 

 **vii.**  
You are sitting with him in your solar one evening, quietly mending a pair of stockings and stitching dancing direwolves around the delicate band as he nurses his ale at your feet, laying back against your legs with his dark head nearly in your lap, telling you stories about Jon in the South until you are laughing so that you miss a stitch, then two, then have to put down your mending entirely. This, too, has become ritual for you - along with the gentle kiss upon your cheek in the mornings, the lingering embrace at your door in the evenings, the way he talks with you as if he wants to know what you think, as if you are important to him. Cherished, adored, wanted.

(The way he laid you across his workbench last week, when it had rained all day and the council meeting had been unceremoniously canceled, cataloging every inch of exposed flesh with his open-mouthed kisses, had certainly proved the point. It is not something that you had ever celebrated before, the feeling of a man’s eyes on you, hotter than the hot springs in the woods. 

Blushing, you bite your lip and think that you haven’t shown him the springs yet, and really, you would lose your reputation as a good hostess if you were remiss in your duties.) 

You run your fingers through his hair, and smile fondly at him as he looks back over his shoulder towards you, leaning into your touch. This warmth in your chest, it feels as though you are content, no longer waging a war by yourself, but rather floating lighter than air and happier for each moment spent in his company. 

_Marry me,_ he says suddenly, eyes serious even as a smile plays around his lips, _if you want to._

The grin that spreads across your face hurts in its joy, even as you lift your shoulder coquettishly and say, _alright, then._ He kisses the inside of your knee through your gown and the sensation sends a shiver down your spine, and his smile only grows more roguish. 

_Alright, then,_ he replies, turning back and settling against you, calm countenance at odds with the way he is beaming at the hearth. You stroke your fingers through his hair and stare into the fire. 

(You think of a devilish little girl with blue eyes, darting around the corners, of a serious little boy toddling his way through the courtyard, dark hair falling into his eyes.

You admit to yourself that Gendry may mean something to you, after all. 

Why else would you agree, willingly, to what you had sworn off forever?) 

 

 **viii.**  
Letters are written and dawn breaks and the sun sets and the weeks pass. A cold bath, a simple Northern plait in your copper hair, and - hesitantly, a touch of sweet oils behind your ears, at your wrists, at the hollow of your throat, at the meeting of your thighs. 

And, suddenly, here you are: standing in the godswood, swearing your vows under the heart tree and the old gods, your trembling hands in his. He hasn’t taken his eyes from you - not once - and the foolish part of you, the girlish silly secret part of your heart that somehow still remains, is thrilled. You promise your life and your heart to Gendry Baratheon, First of His Name, and your name tumbling from his lips has never sounded so sweet. 

You kiss him - and that’s important, that he does not move from where has rooted himself, that he lets you come to him even though his eyes are blazing and and he tells you how lovely you look in a voice low enough that no one else could have heard - and the people cheer so loud you cannot hear yourself think, though the pounding of the blood in your veins threatens to drown you. You let yourself be swept up in your lord husband’s arms and carried in to the castle for a feast the likes of which your people haven’t seen in all of their lives. 

Happiness shines bright in you that night. You dance until your feet are sore and the music is faster and sloppier as the musicians drink more and more ale and you spin around and around with this clumsy, beautiful man who is yours. 

There is a moment - when he is standing at the high table, raising a toast to you, a broad grin stretched across his face as he watches you spin and dance with more abandon than you have in years, feeling happier than you have in years - you are safe, you are wanted, you are adored - and your eyes lock and you think, this. This is it. This is the beginning. 

It is hard to think back on this moment and regret it. It is hard to look back and chide yourself, for you should have known. 

(How could you have known? You should have, nonetheless.) 

It is hard to look back at your wedding and imagine it through your sister’s eyes, hanging back in the benches among the common folk and the younger wildlings, eyes bright with something that looks like despair, mouth tight. 

You can still hear the music when you think of it. Gendry’s grin is imprinted on your memory like a brand. 

You should have known it would not last. 

It should not have begun, in the first place. 

 

 **ix.**  
Standing on the walkway, you shudder and pull your cloak around you; it is an unusually chilly day for all the brightness in the sky, the weak sun lazily lighting the courtyard. A flush passes over your cheeks as you watch your husband - husband, the word still so new in your mouth, like a foreign fruit - test the heft and weight of a longsword, sweat gleaming on his forehead and hair damp from the heat in the forge. 

You can recall, in perfect clarity, a different sort of heat from the night before. His rough hands on the line of your hip, murmuring his adulation into the curve of your shoulder, the path of his kisses from your lips to the apex of your thighs - everything is new between the two of you, but this is especially tender to you: the pleasures of having your husband share your bed, waking with his arm slung across your waist possessively, feeling his lips press to the back of your neck and arching into his kiss. You are not used to being wanted and wanting in return. 

Gendry is absorbed in his work, but just as you are about to retreat back into the warmth of your solar, you notice a familiar figure walk through the gates - dark hair mussed and wild eyes and boots muddy - and your heart leaps. She’s been riding, though you never know whether it’s wolf or horse, and you muse on whether the pants you’ve tailored for her form are wearing through yet, before realizing the two people you know best are about to meet. You step forward and are about to call out but - 

The sun hits the light of the sword in Gendry’s hand, flashing into Arya’s eyes and causing her to throw up her arm and shout. They turn towards each other and for a moment, the reflection is in your eyes. 

When your eyes re-adjust, they are simply standing there, eyes locked on each other, struck dumb - and you wonder how you have been so blind, so willfully ignorant of what was right in front of you. 

It was his name she called out in the night. Had you forgotten or pushed it away? Bile rises in your throat; you had heard the love in her voice, the longing for this man, the one name she called for in the midst of a fever, and you stole him from her. You married him and kept him and wanted him and - you back away with your hand over your mouth. 

It was her he rode North for - you recall the way his eyes had scanned the courtyard at his arrival, the way he had seemed to be looking for someone at your wedding feast, in the courtyards, in the woods. He should have married her. What is one Stark princess to another, after all? The desire fades from your cheeks and is replaced with burning shame. How could he want you, compared to her? 

You wear dresses that flow across the floor. You embroider the tops of your silk stockings with stags and wolves intertwined, for your husband to notice and admire as he pulls them slowly from your legs, kissing each bared inch of skin. You have never held a sword, shot an arrow, been a warrior. When the White Walkers came, you hid with a dagger in your hand and prayed you’d never have to use it. 

_Why are you here?_ Arya’s voice rings in your head like bells at the sept, tolling and clanging until you can hear nothing else besides the hesitant longing, the confusion. 

_Sansa_ , he replies, voice low and careful as he approaches her, hands up in surrender, just as you would with a wild animal, and it is so clear that he has known her from before and you’ve never heard him say your name quite like that before. 

_You her personal guard, now? Where’s Brienne?_ She snorts, even as her voice shakes, even as her hands tremble at her sides. _Doing a rather shit job of it, don’t you think?_

Gendry shakes his head slowly and stops within arms reach, regret coloring his face and forcing the downturn of his mouth. _I’m her husband, Arya._

Arya’s brow furrows as the pieces fall together in her mind, and even from this far you can hear her whisper: _the Baratheon bastard,_ and see Gendry wince. 

Their eyes remain locked on each other, and you mean to back away quietly - you do - but you trip over your skirts and the soft swear that leaves your lips - he has truly had a terrible influence on you - breaks their gazes, almost reluctantly, as they look up to you. 

You look at Arya, first, just long enough for you to see the wild despair written across them, the howling and the teeth and the torment and it matches your own and - 

She runs. It should be no surprise to you. 

(It is. It is like expecting a blow not to hurt simply because you saw it coming. 

This hurts.) 

(You cannot look at him, you cannot see the guilt, you cannot see his shame, that he never wanted you, after all.) 

(Just because you turn and walk away slowly does not mean you aren’t running away too.) 

 

 **x.**  
The days slip through your fingertips like snow melting and she does not return. You plant winter roses in the glass gardens, sweating through your too-loose gowns and she does not return. You tally the food storage remaining and she does not return. 

You watch the gates. Disappointment sticks hot in your throat every night. And yet somehow, you knew, didn’t you, clever girl, that she would do this, that she would leave, run, betray everything you fought for together - 

You push away Petyr’s voice, insistent even in death, even as the ghost that lingers, still, in your mind. Arya did not betray you. She felt something for this man, and be it desire or fear or love, she found a reason to leave. It is simple, you chide yourself, turning back to your letters. Blood drops on the desk in your solar - your teeth have torn at your lips too often in worry, in fear - and it startles you into remembering: but you have betrayed her. 

 

 **xi.**  
It is easier than you thought it would be, to avoid Gendry completely. 

You don’t love him anyway, you tell yourself, so it’s not as if it matters to you. 

(You do. It does. You sigh. You move on.) 

When he rises in the morning, the sun has already seen you break your fast and work in your solar for hours, writing letters and looking over reports and knitting blankets for the new babes born within your walls. Busy hands, light work, empty mind - your mother would have been proud of you. 

(Never were the orphans of the North better clothed than the winter when Ned brought Jon back to his home and claimed him as his own. Never were the ledgers better maintained, the lords better reined in from their selfish, violent desires.

You have hated that you resembled her and loved that you are her mirror image but gods, you didn’t think you’d understand her in this bitterness, this business of loving a man who loves another. A picture of Arya and Gendry, curled together around a babe in her arms flashes through your mind and even the tea brewed with mint leaves on your desk cannot suppress the malaise in your stomach at the thought.) 

No matter the hour, you make sure you are already in bed when he enters the chambers you share. Breathing steady, shift carefully opaque and body nestled beneath the quilts, heart sinking like a stone even as it thrums at his presence - maybe he still wants you, it whispers. Your heart has always led you astray before. You ignore it completely. 

He sighs. He whispers your name, voice low and rough and tormented, before settling into the quilts, far enough from your body that you can hardly feel his warmth. 

You ignore your heart completely. 

 

 **xii.**  
She comes back. She breaks her fast with you one morning when Gendry is already out in the forge, pushing the fruit preserves roughly across the table. You hide your surprise behind your tea. You eat your porridge. It burns your tongue. You hardly notice.

The silence, once comfortable, now pricks at you as if you forgot to remove the needles from your gown when taking it in at the waist. (Winter was not kind to the food storage. Winter was not kind to you in many ways). Words are dismissed the moment you consider them, falling short in their potential to soothe this ache, to un-make this choice, to part from the man who means something to your sister. 

_In the years_ \- Arya starts and stops and starts again. She resolutely does not look at you. _In the years between King’s Landing and Bravos, I was Arry. He was my family, then._

You stay silent. You do not flinch when her voice breaks. You do not retreat from the love you hear in her voice. Confessions are wrought from the tongue only like this, in the space between you. 

_Gendry protected me, even after he knew I was a girl, and I tried to keep him safe._ Her voice cut off abruptly, lost in the swarm of memories that surrounded her like a shroud, like a storm. You hear the words she is not saying: I loved him, he loved me, he was all I had and it broke me to lose him. 

Carefully, gently, you reach out a hand to place it on top of your sister’s, the only family you have left in this world. The strength is in the pack, and you are tired of howling alone. She looks at you, curious, reading your face in that way she has now - blank eyes detecting half-truths and semi-lies and every nuance in-between, before shaking her head slowly and sighing. 

_Jon is right, he is a good man_ \- a wry smile crosses her face as she turns from you, melancholy in every curve of her face - _Father would have loved him_. 

_It makes more sense for you to marry him instead,_ you plead, you offer, you bargain. If she loves him, you cannot have him to be yours. If she loves him, she deserves happiness even if you do not. 

(You love him, but you love her more. 

Snatched moments of happiness and warmth and devotion are more than enough for you, anyway. More than you deserved, more than you ever thought you’d get, stupid little dove.) 

She shakes her head, and stands up, scraping her chair against the floor. _Arry, the bastard girl pretending to be a boy, could have loved Gendry, the bull-headed apprentice. I don’t know that girl anymore, and I haven’t known that boy for a long time._ She sighs and it tastes like relief, sweet and light and like a fruit you’ve heard of but never known. A weight is lifted from her shoulders, the weight of a history you never knew she carried, the weight of a coal burning tight in her chest that she has finally allowed to extinguish completely. 

You stare at this girl, this woman in front of you, who seems to know who she is and what she wants and the flash of envy is hard to swallow, hard to see around. 

Her grey eyes flick back to you one last time and she says, so softly you strain to hear her: _he loves you, you know?_ Her smile is wry and gentle and only a little bit broken at the edges, a mirror you can still see yourself in even as the outer edges have rusted. 

And she leaves you in the empty hall with only your thoughts to keep you company. 

 

 **xiii.**  
It is unlike you to be brave, but that evening, when Gendry comes to your chambers, you are still in your solar, quietly mending a stocking with trembling hands. You do not notice that you have pricked your fingertips until your winter roses have all been stained blood-red. It is unlike you. 

You do not miss the way his eyes widen when he sees you, how he stumbles over his boots in an effort to get them off, how he hesitates before sitting in the chair opposite yours. (He had always sat at your feet, broad shoulders leaning against the folds of your gown, a tankard of ale in his hand as you watched the fire together.)

It meant nothing to you, the syllables of his name lost in the night wind and burned on paper that traded your life away once more. Nothing. You had hoped for kindness, or at the least, avoidance, and instead the gods had sent you this man. The warmth from the hearth is mirrored by the way his eyes trace your form - not a blazing fire, not a candle's glow, but affection, caring, trust. 

Trembling hands set the ruined embroidery to rest in your lap as you look at him, gaze level even as your voice stumbles and starts again. _I’m sorry for avoiding you_ , you say, fighting the urge to draw your eyes from his, to look down in shame, for you must see his face when you say what you know you’ll say next. _I didn’t know what you were to each other. I thought it might still be that way now._

Even before the words have tumbled from your lips, he springs from his chair, dropping to his knees in front of you to clasp your hands in his own, rough meeting smooth. His skin on your own is jolting, jarring, and he draws back until you relax. You hadn't realized how little you were touched until he came into your gates with careful caresses, the light pressure of his hand on your back, on your neck, on the curve of your cheek.The feel of his thumb rubbing the soft flesh of your palm is enough to distract you to dizziness, to desire - but you retain your focus, even at the warmth of his body next to yours. You are drawn to him, a moth to a flame, even now. 

Especially now. (He means everything to you.) 

_I meant what I said when I arrived: I ran to you, Sansa. I thought you knew what we had been to each other, once._ Earnest and open, this man does not do subterfuge, does not lie, has never lied to you. You had simply never asked, had never known you needed to ask. And now, though you have been told by Arya, have served as her sister and confessor, though you have been assured by your husband, the question still burns your tongue and begs to be asked. So, you ask it, though your voice shakes and your hands tremble and you make promises to yourself about the outcome that you will never know later if you would have been able to keep - 

_Do you love her still?_

He answers steadily, with a shake of his head. _Only for being your sister._ His calm demeanor comforts you; there is no shifting eyes, no tightness at the corner of his mouth. You have been able to detect lies from men who had been raised to lie, brought up to nurture the skill as a craft, and you had been forced to learn the trade. But this man, he does not lie to you. 

This makes the next question harder still, even falls from your lips like rain. You hate how desperate you sound, how weak and full of longing and uncertainty. You hate how much you want his answer to be yes, even as you hate how much you fear it will be no. 

_Do you love me?_

(You had not realized, until this moment, how much you needed him to choose you, as well.) 

A grin crosses his face, not unlike the one from your wedding feast, bright and blinding and beautifully honest. _From the moment I laid eyes on you, wife, and more every moment since._

A sob escapes your throat and you lean in, pressing his forehead against your own, letting the tears fall on the stockings you will keep in a drawer for years to come, to remind you of starting anew, of honesty, of the gift this man has been for you. 

Your hands trace the lines of his jaw and hold him steady as you plant kiss after kiss on his lips, feeling him respond in kind. His hands snake around your waist as he stands, pulling you flush against him, and the rest of the evening is warmth, heat, the aching loveliness of being known and seen and wanted and loved. 

You have never been so happy. 

 

 **xiv. an epilogue, of sorts**  
And when Daenerys comes to collect your first born, your daughter, years later, you quietly remind her that the people did not choose her, that the deal she made was not a deal but a threat, that the North remembers. You ask her if it would be worth the risk, worth the fight, if the North backed a Stark born of a Tully, married to a Baratheon, sister-by-law to the silver-tongued blue-haired Griff who followed Arya around like a lost puppy until she married him for true. Gendry, bless him, stands at your shoulder, your sleeping babe nestled carefully in his arms, daring any and all to try to take her from him. 

There can be no mistake - this is another battle in the longest war you have fought, and you do not truly rest until she is grown, completely within the boundaries of Winterfell and the North and the godswoods and the love of the people within them. Siblings follow, one after the other, filling the halls with laughter, and you rejoice in having a pack again. 

And so, the kingdom passes from Targaryen hands into Stark. 

And when she is crowned, there is no crown for her but the one that he gave you, delicate and lovely and strong and fierce, wolves and stags intertwined. Winter has come, spring has followed, and not only have you endured, you’ve loved and been loved. It is nothing you would have ever dreamed; it is far better.

**Author's Note:**

> THANK YOU for reading and indulging my style exploration and a pairing I've never written before. 
> 
> (casually rows by waving a GENSA flag) 
> 
> You can come fangirl with me at my tumblr: jolieunfiltrd <3 
> 
>  
> 
> oh, & the title is from "bees" by the ballroom thieves: 
> 
> "I said our hearts know deeper seasons than our memories  
> She said this harvest might sustain us for a year  
> And of all the thousand ways the world could tempt me  
> I never met a better fighter of her fears  
> And I try to breathe the air that she is breathing  
> And they dance a lightless dance upon my floor  
> I am burning to tell her she's all I'm needing,  
> But I'm drowned out by all the noise outside the door.  
> Well carried by the current of the morning,  
> miles below the surface of the dawn.  
> This is not the place I was born in.  
> But that doesn't mean it's not the place where I belong"


End file.
